Lehman,
Layman, Lemon Genealogy,

DNA
Enhanced

About
DNA Testing

A
researcher of a Lehman family quickly learns,
that one of his major
problems is that the name is spelled so many different ways.
Inconsistencies in spelling were rampant in Europebefore
the first Lehman, by any spelling, ever set his foot upon the shores of the
New World. Additionally, as
Seabrook points out at p. 68, in Fourteenth Century England, thirty-four
percent of all males were named John. In German-speaking Europe, John was
Johannes/Johan/Hannes/Hans. Up to that point in time, John was the only name
that the individual had, because there were no surnames. It must have been
a mess.

Howard
Lehman Spessard, in A Brief History of the Lehman Family and
Genealogical Register of the Descendants of Peter Lehman of Lancaster
County, PA, published in 1961, noted at p. 8, that there are eighteen
different spellings of the name "Lehman" on the social security
death index. Actually, research now reveals considerably more than
eighteen and additional spellings are still surfacing. Y our compiler quit
counting at about 50.Some of those
encountered in researching the families’ histories are shown on the
left of this page under the Coat of Arms. At least a dozen different
spellings are found indiscriminately in both family, A.1,
and family, A.2. There is no correlation between a particular origin of
the surname, or a present-day family, and the surname spelling. Incredibly, in the
recorded copy of Peter Leman’s will, his name is spelled three different
ways. It is impossible, until well into the Nineteenth Century, to
distinguish a particular family by its spelling. Consequently, the same
person’s name may be spelled differently at different locations in a
particular document. While little signifance can be attached to spelling,
complete confidence can be placed inY-Chromosome testing if a sufficient number of
markers are scored.

Laboratory
work for the first sixty-one tests was done by Oxford Ancestors of London,
England (hereinafter sometimes Oxford), which reports a score at ten
markers. Probably due in some part to the current weakness of the U. S.
dollar against the English pound on world financial markets, the charge by
Oxford by 2004 had risen to $236.00. That price for a ten-marker test
became unacceptable. Arrangements were made to have tests
preformed by Family Tree DNA of Houston, TX (hereinafter sometimes FTDNA).
Ten and 12-marker tests are useful, albeit sometimes
unreliable, to determine whether two
people are related. They are of little worth in aiding in the determination
of how closely two people are related. A test of 37 markers may be had for
$169.00 and a very comprehensive 67-marker test is $268.00. We now have a 111-marker
test for
$359. As of the latest revision of this page, we
now report a total of 175 test results on this website. Numerous other results are not
reported, usually at the choice of the participant or his sponsor. Included are tests of descendants of most of
the pre-1760 arrivers as well as several Nineteenth Century immigrants. We
have tested several residents of Switzerland and most are related to an
early emigrant. Contact me at elayman814@aol.com
for assistance in arranging a test, to report any errors or omissions in this document or
just to discuss Lehman, by any spelling, genealogy. Anyone who would like to
be notified of test results when they are reported and not be required to
wait until they are posted on this web site need only notify the compiler
to be added to that list, which now includes over 320 Lehman by any
spelling researchers.

How
Y-Chromosome DNA Testing Works and what it has Revealed

DNA
testing as it relates to genealogy had its origin with the publication of
an article entitled “The Tree of Me” which appeared in the the New
Yorker; 26 March 2001 at p. 58. The author was John Seabrook who had
used his expertise in DNA to trace his roots. The test analyzes the
y-chromosome.

Let it first be
made abundantly clear that your compiler is no expert in the field of DNA
testing and what knowledge he possesses is limited to Y-Chromosome tests.
That having been said for the benefit of those who are interested in
tracing their family roots but don't know where or how to start, permit me
to state a couple of basics.
Chromosomes
may be described as units of genetic material within the body, or packets
of DNA. Only males have a Y-chromosome, which they inherit from their
fathers. Thus it is elementary that a female cannot donate a sample
for a Y-Chromosome test. Additionally the participant must be a direct descendant
through the male line. The female researcher must conscript a brother,
father, male cousin, nephew or uncle with the Lehman, by any spelling,
name. The male researcher of a surname other than his own must do
something similar. With minor exceptions the participant must have the
surname of the line that is being researched. Those exceptions all involve
the presence in the male line of an individual who, for some reason, was
known by other than that of his natural fathers surname.

The good news is that the Y-chromosome traces an unbroken paternal genealogy back into the past. If
two men trace their paternal lines back to a common male ancestor then
they must both have inherited his Y-chromosome. So two men, or a group of
men, perhaps with the same or similar surnames, might suspect they are
related through their paternal lines. By comparing their Y-chromosomes
this relationship can be proven or disproved. It is a reliable indicator
of blood kinship between men who are distantly related but for whom no
documentary evidence of a relationship exists.

On
this web site, we will be comparing Y-chromosome lines of various Lehman
males. This might be a good time to examine a Y-chromosome line to see
what it consists of. Your compiler claims no expertise in this field and I
have no illusions that there are are not a lot of you all out there that
know infinitely more about this than I do. This is for the benefit of the
Dummies like myself. Accordingly, in the interest of keeping it simple, we will use a 12-marker result for this
illustration. Complete
results are on the Appendix page. This one is the genetic signature of a
descendant of Peter Leman of family A.1.

Locus

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

DYS#

393

390

19*

391

385a

385b

426

388

439

389-1

392

389-2

Alleles

13

24

14

10

11

11

12

12

13

13

13

29

The
top line simply numbers the markers, up to 111. The second line is the scientific description of the marker, technically with the
letters dys preceding the number. The third line is the value of DNA
allele for each of the twelve markers, sometimes called the score.
Altogether, the score at each of the markers, or allele, are used to
constitute an individual’s Y-chromosome signature. It is also referred
to as the genetic signature. It is these numbers that are compared with
others to prove or disprove a relationship. In
the early years of DNA testing, we committed two fundamental errors that
contributed to sometimes inaccurate conclusions. The first was that we
took the average times for a mutation too literally. The average times
were not seriously in error, but the wide divergence from average, which
could and did occur in specific instances, was not fully understood or
appreciated. As an example, it was believed that one change in ten
markers was indicative of a reasonably close relationship. This might be
true in an individual case, however, it might not be true and no reliance
can be placed thereon. By the same token, we thought that two changes in
ten markers, coupled with a shared surname, at least suggested a distant
relationship. This notion had even less merit.

A related misconception during the earlier years of DNA testing
was that ten and twelve-marker tests could be relied on. While a perfect
match at ten or twelve markers, coupled with a common surname, usually
indicates a common ancestor more recent than the advent of the surname
system, we have found examples of even
that being misleading. This problem is virtually eliminated by the present
frequent use of 37 and 67-marker tests. These tests are not only
infinitely more accurate in telling us who is related to whom, but also
are an aid in establishing how far in the past the common ancestor lived
and, as a result, on occasion, in determining what the specific kinship
is. This is even more true now we are able to compare 111 markers.

A significant
advance that has come about is FTDNA’s “Tip Analysis.” It is
available on FTDNA’s web site to each participant to estimate his
genetic distance from any other participant on FTDNA's database. It is based on Dr. Walsh’s
formula and takes into consideration that some markers mutate faster than
others. It represents the best available method to estimate time to a
common ancestor. Even so, it should be remembered that, notwithstanding
its great worth, determining how
closely two males are related based on comparing results of DNA tests is
still an inexact science. Furthermore, the closest DNA match is not
necessarily the closest relative.
Some adjusting of
values is required when comparing Oxford and
FTDNA scores. Both use markers 389i and 389ii. They use a different method of scoring
them, but the two methods bear a constant relationship. The conversion may
be compared to converting Celsius to Fahrenheit or vice-versa to compare
the temperatures in a European and an American city. The temperatures
can't be compared till you convert one or the other. FTDNA's score at 389i
is Oxford's score plus 3. At 389ii it is Oxford's 389ii + FTDNA’s 389i.
If we are converting from FTDNA to Oxford, we subtract 3 from FTDNA’s
dys 389i. to match Oxford’s dys 389i. We subtract FTDNA’s dys 389i
from FTDNA dys 389ii to arrive at Oxford’s dys 389ii. Obviously, as time
passes and more tests of 37, 67 and 111 markers are done, the ten-marker
Oxford tests shrink in significance.
The following is taken from Seabrook’s article at page 62.“Perhaps
the most dramatic example so far of the potential of Y-chromosome based
family history was demonstrated last spring by Bryan Sykes, obtained DNA
from forty-eight male Sykeses, who were not, as far as the respondents
knew, related either to Dr. Sykes or to each other. By studying the men's
Y chromosomes, Svkes discovered, to his astonishment, that there was a
distinctive Sykes-family signature on the Y chromosomes of twenty-one of
the forty-eight men tested. Four other Sykeses were only one mutation away
from those twenty-one.

Sykes
reasoned that since the DNA of the remaining Sykeses was not at all
similar, there was probably one original founder of the surviving Sykes
line, and that the unrelated Sykeses must be the results of a steady
accumulation of non-paternity events or adoptions.”

Application of the Sykes reasoning to our Lehman, Layman study
results in some remarkable similarities.
Of the 176 included tests as of the latest revision of this website,
53 are descended from or closely related to one of
the three early Family A.1 immigrant, Peter, Rudolph or Hans of Manheim. and thus to the Radolfingen Family 1, originating in the Parish of
Vechigen in the Swiss Emmental. That is proven by Test 68 and amounts to
approximately 30% of those included in the study. if the comparison is
limited to descendants of pre-1760 immigrants, the Family A.1 portion
rises to over one third. There are other families including Family A. 2, traced to
Leuzigen in the Parish of Arch and Family D traced to Signau. Family P is
linked to Steffisburg. Clearly,
there were multiple origins of Lehman families and, sadly, there is
absolutely no correlation between the location of origin and the surname
spelling today. For
Swiss ancestors of these and other families, see
Lehman
Ancestors in the Swiss Emmental before Emigration. Undoubtedly,
some of the results represent relatively recent false
paternities, adoptions, name changes etc. For further
discussion of this subject, see Ch. 3 of Lehman, Layman Genealogy
Handbook.

We
also have a problem that Sykes did not have in that there are literally
dozens of way to spell our surname with no discernable pattern.

Any
number of descendants of a common ancestor can contribute to the cost of
testing of one male descendant of that line. E-mail to the compiler at elayman814@aol.com,
willget
things started. There is no point in known close relatives having their
own individual test preformed.

If the price of the test is a deterrent to you, by all means contact me. I can
help.
Let
us now consider the results of individual tests. Test results are numbered
for identification purposes only. The test number has no significance. The
identity of the living participant and any living ancestor is not included
out of an abundance of precaution not to infringe upon the privacy of
persons still living.